


Something's Wrong

by Louffox



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas Whump, Destiel if you squint - Freeform, Gen, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 20:08:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Louffox/pseuds/Louffox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is finally getting in the swing of being human. But we all know how luck works for this group. He wakes up one morning, feeling a bit strange, and quickly digresses into something really serious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something's Wrong

            Waking up was one of Castiel’s least favorite things. It was just behind motion sickness, and followed by stubbed toes and that pain in your teeth when you bite into ice cream. As an angel, he’d only experienced such grogginess and fatigue in the most dire of situations. Now he dealt with it every day, while his human body clawed its way out of unconsciousness.

            That morning was nearly no different- he did notice he felt a bit odd. A sort of ache in his abdomen. But after the first week of being human- every phantom twitch and itch and pain and ache sending him running to Dean and Sam, thinking there was something very wrong with him- he’d grown accustomed to unexplainable pains. Perhaps he’d slept in a poor position and had tweaked a muscle. He dismissed it and stumbled to the closet to get his towel and some clothes, slipping into his bumblebee slippers to protect his toes from the cold floor. Charlie had gotten them for him soon after he’d become human.

            Over a year. It had been more than a year since he and all the angels had lost their grace and fallen to the earth. When it became clear that he wasn’t going back upstairs for a while, Sam and Dean and Kevin had taken him with some freshly faked credit cards to an enormous store, and they had bought things for the guest room he’d been staying in. To make it his.

            So he’d gotten a collection of massive posters of the galaxy, supernovas and star cascades and bright space debris and planets, and covered his ceiling with them. They didn’t look the same as they had when he’d turned his celestial gaze upon them- the human cameras couldn’t capture the auras and thermal fields and life waves, and his human eyes didn’t see as large a spectrum of colors as his celestial ones did, but it was as close as he could get. Charlie helped him purchase a new wardrobe, and then Kevin went through and redid the whole thing because Charlie had questionable tastes.

            His angel blade hung on the wall, along with a plethora of guns and other weapons. His headboard he’d almost completely covered with dreamcatchers- the wide range of feathers and materials used fascinated him, as well as the lore that followed- and a collection of rosaries hung from the lamp on his bedside table. The room was tidy but strange, with the collection of strange things, but it was his, and filling it with things he liked made it feel comfortable and personal.

            Waking up with a shower, he’d found, was the best way to dispel the drowsiness of the morning, followed by a cup of coffee. Or two. Dean’s caffeine habit was definitely rubbing off on him. He showered, turning the water as hot as he could stand (hot showers were a wonderful bonus of being human that he hadn’t forseen) and washed and dried and dressed in dark wash jeans (the knees were a bit faded, and the back pocket had a hole) and a plain maroon t-shirt. When he went to hang his towel back in his room, he retrieved his navy hoodie and pulled that on- he was oddly chilled this morning, even after the hot shower. And the ache in his stomach was still there.

            Perhaps he was hungry. Breakfast was an important meal, he’d heard from Sam. So he went to the kitchen to prepare himself some breakfast.

            “Morning, Cas,” Sam said, buttering toast messily while absorbed in a book. He smeared butter all over his hand and frowned distractedly.

            “Good morning, Sam. You’ve buttered your hand as well,” Castiel observed, putting a pot of water on the stove, remembering to turn it on. While he waited for that to boil, he mixed oats, brown sugar, raisins, walnuts and cinnamon in a bowl.

            “Yeah,” Sam laughed, not taking his eyes off the book and reaching blindly around the sink for a cloth. Cas helpfully grabbed a napkin and put it in his searching hand. “Thanks.”

            The ex-angel glanced over his shoulder at the book- at the top of the page it said the book title and the chapter name. _Fantastic Beasts. Chapter Eight: habitation._ Sam was obviously very deep in his reading, so Cas let him be and made his oatmeal quietly.

            He patiently waited for it to cool (burning his mouth was surprisingly unpleasant and lasted for longer than he’d imagined) and opened the newspaper on the table. He liked to read the editorials and the obituaries. Hearing about people’s lives was much more interesting than the football scores or the weather.

            He’d just begun eating when Dean shambled in, unshowered, and grabbed the grape juice from the fridge. He drank right from the bottle, and Sam glanced up and scoffed.

            “Dean, gross. I bet you haven’t even brushed your teeth.”

            “Nope. Looks like you shouldn’t drink the grape juice, then- guess it’s all mine now,” Dean snickered, and the exasperated eye-roll Sam gave him revealed that Dean’s antics were nothing new.

            “You have a purple mustache,” Cas pointed out, scraping the bottom of his bowl for the last of the brown sugar. Dean wiped at his lip with his arm and put the bottle back, then poked around in the fridge.

            “Any more of that cold pizza?” he asked.

            “No,” Sam muttered, absorbed back in his book.

            “Damn,” he sighed, gazing longingly into the fridge as if more would materialize if he looked at it with enough hope.

            “I can make you eggs,” Cas offered, standing and bringing his bowl to the sink.

            “Nah, thanks. I can do it, I’m just being lazy,” Dean said, stretching tiredly. His ragged bedshirt rode up and a sliver of skin showed above his sweatpants.

            “It’s no problem. I enjoy cooking,” Cas reassured, already getting a pan and spraying it.

            “Thanks, man,” Dean said sincerely, sitting down and tugging the newspaper over. “Anything good in the news?”

            “A woman with nineteen grandchildren recently passed away.”

            “And that’s why the world is overpopulated. We’re like rats. Why do you need that many kids?” Dean snorted.

            “I think the human life cycles are beautiful. And children are a miracle of life. Celestial beings and demonic beings, monsters, and spirits, powerful as they may be, they are unable to create more of themselves. Having so many other lives come from her life is miraculous.”

            “Bet holidays were hell,” Dean remarked, flipping the page. “Any abnormal deaths?”

            “A boy drowned on a college campus. He was at a party in a fraternity house.”

            Dean flipped a few pages and found it, and quickly scanned it. “Looks like it’s just frat hazing, he drowned while trying to funnel beer. Already wasted. Not our thing,” he dismissed with a snort.

            “It sounded a bit like witchcraft to me,” Cas said, flipping long strips of bacon dexterously, trying to avoid spattering hot grease.

            “Nah. No witches, but plenty of bitches, sure.”

            Cas let out a little laugh, then winced and put a hand to his stomach, just below his navel.

            “You alright, man?” Dean asked, noticing.

            “Yes, I believe it’s just some indigestion or something. I thought it was hunger pain, but I’ve eaten and it hasn’t gone away,” Cas said dismissively. After so much teasing about all his aches and pains panic when he was initially a human, he didn’t want to make a fuss about something unless there was blood or real signs of something wrong. A bit of stomach pain was nothing.

            “It’s probably all that healthy junk you eat. Or you aren’t getting enough fiber, if you catch my drift,” Dean said with a shrug, flipping a page of the newspaper.

            Cas cooked the eggs in the bacon grease, over easy just as Dean liked them. Usually he cooked most of the meals. He did enjoy cooking. Food interested him. When he’d become human, he’d immediately put on weight because of his fascination with food. Now he went running with Sam fairly consistently to help maintain his physique. Jimmy Novak hadn’t been an especially fit man, but he wasn’t particularly unhealthy either. As an angel, he had hardly noticed the fitness of his vessel, but now, as a human hunter, he knew it was important for his body to be strong and fast. With Sam’s help, he’d made his body like a well-oiled machine. Efficient, powerful, able.

            But that pain. It was irritating, and it seemed to be worse than it was when he’d just woke up. He still felt odd, temperature-wise, too. His torso felt hot and strange, while his fingers and toes felt icy cold.

            He glanced over- Dean was absorbed in the newspaper. Carefully, he pressed his hand experimentally just below his belly button.

            Ow. He silently hissed a breath and dropped his hand, but the pain lingered like he was still pressing on it. After he was finished cooking, he would lie down and read or watch a movie or something and take it easy until it abated.

            He put a plate together for Dean and retrieved a fork and set it on the table in front of him.

            “Thanks, man,” Dean said gratefully, smiling brightly up at him. “I’ll cook supper tonight, unless we find a case. Burgers?”

            “Yes, thank you,” Cas said, forcing a smile. Burgers  usually were his favorite, but he was feeling a little nauseous. “May I borrow a movie?”

            “What’s yours is mine, you should know that. Pick a good one, I’ll shower and probably join you.”

            Cas thumbed through Dean’s movie collection and chose one called _The Breakfast Club_. He liked breakfast. And after he’d asked Sam, in all seriousness, whether he knew anyone who went to Hogwarts, he’d decided to cut back on the fiction movies.

            He went back into the sitting room and put it in the laptop and plugged the laptop into the projector and turned the projector on, the speakers on, and the lights off. Kevin and Sam had put the setup together, and Cas loved it. He settled into a recliner, curling up slightly but careful not to put any pressure on his stomach.

            The movie started and he tried his hardest to focus on the movie, but his ears felt hot and his stomach was really beginning to hurt. Dean came in about 15 minutes into the movie, hair still damp, and complimented his choice before throwing himself down on the couch.

            It was only about 20 minutes later that Cas decided that something was really, _really_ wrong. The ache had graduated suddenly, without warning, to a sharp stabbing agony across his abdomen.

            “Dean,” he mumbled, eyes sliding shut and pulling his legs up, folding himself up protectively. The hunter didn’t hear him over the speakers, and Cas swallowed hard (even that made him feel like he was going to vomit) and tried again, forcing his eyes open. “Dean!” His voice cracked on the short word.

            The elder Winchester looked over, snapping to attention at the broken sound of his voice, and blanched, getting up and rushing over.

            “Cas? Cas, what’s wrong?” he said quickly, reaching over to jab the button on the laptop and stop the movie. Cas’s eyes drifted shut again and he felt large hands on his forehead and shoulder.

            “Idn’t… feel g’d,” he slurred weakly, taking short breaths- even the motion of his lungs and ribs caused stabs of pain in his abdomen. It was bad enough that it felt like electrical shocks radiating through his whole body. “Hurts.”

            “Where, what hurts?”

            “Stumack.” Dean’s hands pulled him back, forcing him to un-curl, and lifted his shirt to look at his stomach.

            “I don’t see anything, but you’re… I don’t know what this is. Do you think you can walk?”

            “Mhmm.” With Dean’s help, he managed to slowly move into a standing position, with Dean supporting most of his weight. They slowly walked into the main room. Every jarring step and jostle made the pain worse- it had migrated more to the right side of his abdomen.

            “Sam! SAM!” Dean hollered, not bothering to look through the expansive bunker for his brother. A moment later, the tall brother was rushing into the room.

            “Dea- Cas? What happened?” he asked sharply. Kevin entered rapidly as well, worried about the ruckus.

            “Don’t know. We were watching a movie and suddenly he was like this, he says he doesn’t feel good and his stomach hurts. There’s no blood or bruising or anything like that, but obviously, something is really bad,” he said quickly, helping Cas sit on the corner of the table.

            Sam lifted his shirt up and looked at his stomach as well, and nothing looked wrong.

            “Can you show us where it hurts, exactly?” Kevin said worriedly. Cas lifted his hand and gently touched a spot just below and to the right of his belly button. “Does it hurt if you push on it? Even after you’ve taken your hand away?”

            “Mhmm,” he mumbled, wrapping his arms gently around his middle and doubling over again, fighting back a whine.

            “What’s that mean?” Dean barked, comfortingly rubbing Cas’s back.

            “Appendicitis, I’m pretty sure. We need to get him to a hospital, like, yesterday,” Kevin said quickly, pulling Cas back up and ducking under one arm while Dean supported the other side. The fallen angel was so pale he looked almost gray, and sweat beaded on his forehead. He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes open. The pain was all-encompassing.

            Sam grabbed the keys and the identity cards they would need while Dean and Kevin carefully moved Cas to the Impala. When they got him out the door of the bunker, he shivered in the fall breeze. The violent shiver suddenly turned into a different kind of convulsion. His arms slid out of Kevin and Dean’s grasp and he fell to his knees in the dust. He _retched_.

            He’d thrown up two other times as a human- once when he’d gotten food poisoning and had spent a night hugging the cool porcelain of the toilet, and once when he’d gone on a depressive-fallen-angel bender and had gotten mild alcohol poisoning and had violently expelled everything he’d had to drink. The feeling was awful.

            It was, unsurprisingly, worse with a crippling pain in his abdomen. And he hadn’t eaten much yet that day, so his gags quickly weren’t bringing anything up.

            Dean rubbed his back and continued to half hold him up until he managed to get his diaphragm and esophagus under control. He sank back into his grasp with a stuttering closed-mouthed groan, almost a sob.

            “You’re alright, we’ll get you to the hospital, nothing bad is gonna happen to you, Cas, we’re here for ya. You think you can get in the car?” he asked gently. Cas nodded, not trusting himself to open his mouth again.

            Kevin and Dean managed to get him to the car, and Dean slid in the back with him, propping him up. He didn’t buckle him in, worried that even that pressure would hurt him. Sam jumped in the driver’s seat and Kevin went to get in the passenger’s, but Sam stopped him.

            “Stay here, run the base. We’ll call if we need anything and when we find anything out. We need someone to stay here, just in case,” Sam said reasonably. Kevin didn’t waste any time arguing, just shut the door and stepped back out of the way.

            Any other time, Dean wouldn’t grumbled at his brother for driving like a maniac, but now was not the time.

            “Almost there, Cas, hang in there. You’ll be fine,” Dean said, keeping up a fairly constant stream of reassurances. Cas just leaned wearily back in the seat and quivered with pain. He let his head hang forward, but that made breathing less good, so he leaned his head back over the headrest, stretching his throat and closing his eyes again. Dean touched his forehead- he felt feverish.

            “Know anything about appendicitis?” Dean asked Sam. He shook his head.

            “Not really. I know your appendix is a useless organ and it can be removed pretty easily, .and I know if it busts then it’s really bad.”

            “How bad are we talking here?”

            “I don’t know.”

            They arrived at a hospital in a nearby town in record time, Sam pulling up to the doors for the ER so Dean could hustle their ill friend in. Dean pulled Cas’s arm over his shoulders and moved as quickly as he dared, trying not to jostle him.

            “Need some help in here!” he called even as he maneuvered in the doors. A nurse took one look at the agonized, half-conscious man and hit a button, summoning a flock of nurses and doctors and a gurney. Then they were hustling him down a hall, and a nurse with a notepad was jogging alongside, asking him questions. He answered the best he could- pain in his stomach, vomiting, no he’d never had his appendix removed, no he didn’t smoke or have any bad habits, yes he exercised. Soon there was a pinch at his elbow, and everything went away.

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>< 

            Waking up again. Twice in one day, going through one of his least favorite things, and he’d just done this. Ugh. He felt heavy and his whole body ached slightly, and though his abdomen throbbed and twinged, it wasn’t anything like it was earlier. It took him a moment to find his eyelids and raise them.

            He was in a room. A hospital room. It smelled like hospitals, too much ‘unscented’ chemicals that gave the air a dusty, fabric-like kind of taste.

            “Cas? Hey, Cas, glad you’re up.” He turned his head stiffly, and saw Dean sitting on the window sill.

            “How are you feeling?” Sam asked from the chair, looking concerned.

            “Achy. But not as bad as before. I feel… bruised. All over,” he muttered, looking down at himself. He was tucked into a hospital bed, in a stiff, starchy hospital gown.

            “Surgery usually leaves you feeling beat up and tired. You sure you’re not feeling like you did before?” Dean asked.

            “Yes. This is nothing like it was before. What exactly happened?” he asked, wiggling up so he was sitting upright against the headboard, wincing slightly as the motion caused a peculiar tugging sensation on his abdomen. Stitches?

            “Appendicitis. It ruptured, which is really bad because it’s essentially a bag full of acid and poison, but very recently- probably when you were watching the movie or something. It had ruptured pretty cleanly, too, so the doctors were able to get all of it out without much trouble. But getting an appendectomy is pretty common, it turns out. They’ll monitor you for a few more hours to make sure everything’s fine, then they can release you and get you a prescription for some pain medication. They say you’ll be back to normal in a week, about.”

            “Good,” he sighed, leaning back against the headboard and rubbing his eyes. His arms felt heavy, and he wished he could take another hot shower to wake himself up. And he wanted his favorite palm beach body wash. He could smell that hospital scent on himself and he knew it would linger for days. And, while he was at the silent bemoaning and complaining, he decided he wanted his bee slippers too. Since he was already whining.

            “You hungry or anything? Is there anything we can get you?” Sam asked with concern.

            Cas thought about food and tensed when his stomach did a decidedly unhappy flip, despite the fact that it was probably empty. “No. Though I’m disappointed I didn’t get to finish that movie and was unable to focus on it.”

            Dean grinned cheekily and grabbed a nondescript backpack at his feet that Cas hadn’t noticed. “Charlie visited the bunker just after we left and Kevin told her what happened. She stopped by to make sure you were alright and dropped a few things off. We’ve got clothes for when you leave, and we’ve got the laptop,” he said brightly.

            “Is _The Breakfast Club_ still in it?” he asked eagerly.

            “Yep!”

            Cas smiled and Dean put the laptop on the table at the end of Cas’s bed, while Sam went and turned off the lights. He started the movie back from the beginning, and they settled in comfortably.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably be a oneshot. If I get a lot of kudos's or comments or whatever, I might add more. ;D  
> And here's my Tumblr: http://fauxfoxfanatics.tumblr.com/


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